


The Genius of Siren's Season 2 Finale

by GettingGreyer



Category: Siren (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Analysis, Episode Analysis, Episode: s02e16 New World Order, Essays, Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 12:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20892032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettingGreyer/pseuds/GettingGreyer
Summary: The season 2 finale ofSirendid something incredibly; it took a trope I despised, "it was all just a dream," and spun it on its head in a way that I loved. The finale took place in a world that is ultimately nonexistent within the show, but it escalated and highlighted the show's themes and furthered Ben's character in exciting ways by showing us his nightmare scenario. This analysis analyzes how the spectacular finale utilized this trope in such a grand way and how it relates to the narrative in terms of theme and character, specifically in relation to Ben Pownall.





	The Genius of Siren's Season 2 Finale

**Author's Note:**

> I finished watching the second season of _Siren_ yesterday and I quickly wrote this meta. I had a lot of thoughts about the finale and yeah ... here we go.

I have some conflicting feelings regarding the season 2 finale of _Siren_. We are exposed to this dystopian scenario where mermaids are discovered and everything goes to hell—Helen and the other hybrids are taken into camps, mermaids are hunted down for sport, friends and family betray them as Ben, Maddie, and Ryn try to cross the border—and then at the end of the episode it is revealed to be a dream. Or rather, a scenario that Ben imagines as he is faced with the impossible dilemma of saving Ian's life and risking their secret getting out or letting him die so his new family can be safe.

I typically despise plotlines where the story deliberately tricks the audience and "it was all just a dream" is one of the worst offenders of this trope. I felt relief and anger when the shoe was dropped, but at the same time, I found myself emotionally mesmerized by the conflict in front of Ben at that moment. The scene where he watches Ian in the car and Ian looks back at him is brutal and gripping; I do not think it would have worked as well without that nightmare scenario.

I usually despise this trope, but it worked exemplary well in this instance and I genuinely love the season finale and think it only elevated and added more to the show, rather than being a useless diversion as is typical with other examples of the trope.

The nightmare scenario isn't a random or a sidetracked story, it is directly related to the themes of the show and takes them to an escalated—but plausibly realistic level. This show's ultimate villain is human selfishness and hatred. And those two monsters rear their ugly heads violently in the finale.

Fear of mermaids turns the human populace violent as they begin to hunt down these creatures. The government rounds up anyone with a connection to mermaids—even hybrids with distant mermaid blood relation, who could be unaware of their connection to the creatures. And people collect these mermaids as trophies.

Ben's father betrays Ben and his location to the government in order to protect Ben, but an action that ultimately hurts Ryn. This moment is a pretty direct parallel to a moment earlier in the season in the episode "Entrapment," Ben and his friends are questioned about Sean's death. Ben is adamant that they wait until the lawyer his father has given him arrives, but Calvin angrily disagrees.

> **Ben:** We keep our mouths shut, and we wait until the lawyer gets here.
> 
> **Calvin:** I literally cannot believe you, dude. That lawyer is gonna be looking out for one person in here, and it’s you.
> 
> **Ben:** My dad is gonna help all of us, okay? I will make sure of that.
> 
> **Calvin:** Us? He doesn’t give a shit about us. He doesn’t even know me! Let me tell you something, the people that spend their lives tryin’ to make the damn rent, they’re the ones that go down first, okay? That’s how it works, Ben. Xan and I are gonna fry, while you, you’re gonna walk-off home, clean, to Mommy.
> 
> **Ben:** I would never let that happen to you.

Ben tells Calvin that he's wrong—that he would find a way to make sure Xander and Calvin are okay—but his nightmare scenario reveals that ultimately Ben doesn't know for certain and that he does think that his father would be willing to hurt the people Ben loves in order to save him. And that while he wants to maintain control and save everyone, he ultimately fears that he will be unable to.

This episode reveals how Ben truly feels about the people in his life, or at least his darkest fears about them. Ultimately, it seems like he only truly trusts Maddie, Ryn, and Helen with virtually everyone else in his life betraying him in some way or another.

Xander and Calvin do not deliberately turn against him, but they turn against his ideas when they decide to embark on a mission to hunt down and capture a mermaid for profit. This echoes many of the selfish sentiments this pair has expressed throughout the show. They have expressed a callousness towards mermaids and even dehumanized them on a number of occasions and—lest we forget—the episode "Dead in the Water" where they attempt to capture a mermaid for profit.

> **Xander:** Ben says the government’s got another boat out there trying to steal our catch … again.  
...  
**Xander:** Yeah, and [the government] already stole from us once.  
…  
**Xander:** If we caught even one of them, just one, our troubles would be over.

They set off into the ocean with the intention of capturing a mermaid and profiting off their misery. Which is exactly what they do in Ben's nightmare scenario. They feel entitled to this living and sentient creature—claiming that the government “stole” her, as if she truly were just a fish—and they fantasize about the profit they would get from such a “catch.” They’re selfish at the expense of another.

Ben's nightmare escalates all the themes of the series by showcasing the worst elements of human nature—selfishness and hatred—coming to fruition, and in doing so they reveal all of Ben's own fears and anxieties not just surrounding society but his relationships as well.

Another thing that makes this episode work so well is the dissonance surrounding the story. Because it seems real, to the characters at least, and very tangible—making all of our emotions and reactions as an audience powerful—but at the same time, there is this unnerving disconnect where something is not quite right. This dissonance allows it to be easier for the audience to easily transition back into the narrative's reality once the dystopian world is revealed to be Ben's nightmare.

There are subtle ways that the show expresses this disconnect. The woman who stole Ryn's fertilized egg isn't shown to be pregnant—something Ben wouldn't know about. And things happen that don't entirely make sense. The reporter publishes his story soon after, even though his boss said that video evidence wasn't enough. People quickly believe the recording as real—humans are skeptics by nature—and everything escalates to shocking extremes.

But the most noticeable shift that causes this disconnect is the sudden genre-shift. _Siren_ very clearly fits itself nicely into the popular American TV drama of "small town with paranormal mystery." That's an awfully specific genre, but it is widespread in American TV with _Vampire Diaries_ and its associated spin-offs, _Once Upon A Time_, _Haven_, _Teen Wolf_, and various other shows in recent years being prominent examples of the genre.

_Siren_ very clearly and distinctly fits itself into that genre and that genre very rarely ever leaves the realm of its small-town—certainly not to the extremes that the _Siren_ season finale does. The show completely drops its main genre and its exchanges it for a large-scale dystopian world, complete with fascist dictatorship, concentration camps, and government-mandated genocide.

This is such a jarring and sudden shift in the show that it feels intensely out of place and as an audience we intuitively and instantly pick up on that—even as we are drawn into the horrific story unfolding before our eyes.

The jarring shift in narrative structure clues the audience to the trickery at work and helps make the transition back to Ben's reality easier. And the wild and sudden extremes the story goes into heightening the audience's emotional connection to the story and Ben’s internal conflict, justifying his decision by grounding it is his fear.

Ben is one of the most morally driven characters in this show. From the very beginning, he has shown himself to be a kind and compassionate person who cares deeply about others and the world. He rejects his father's business practices as immoral because of the harm it does to the environment and he consistently makes decisions based on what he believes is "good."

Over the course of the show he is pushed to new extremes in order to keep the secret of the mermaids. He hides Ryn from the police, chooses to bury Sean at sea, keeps Xander's murder of Donna silent, etc. And in this season he does something that shocked and excited me—he and his girlfriend committed eco-terrorism.

This action isn't framed as too morally complicated within the framework of the show, but as an extreme action with many dangers and risks that is ultimately a natural escalation of the characters’ actions thus far. It shows how far they are willing to go to commit a serious crime that puts them at major risk of discovery for the sake of their family, their secret, and ultimately, their morals.

This isn't a morally-charged action within the show, nor should it be—it would be ridiculous to expect us, as the audience, to care about the moral implications of sticking it to a faceless and evil corporation (even if in the real world it is a bit more complicated than that). But it is an extremist action that foreshadows the lengths that Ben (and Maddie to a lesser extent) are willing to go to.

Ben has been pushed and pushed; he finally reached his breaking point in the season finale when he let Ian die. The show could have just shown us that, but as Ben is one of the most moral characters in the show, they needed to show more.

And by thrusting us into Ben's nightmare scenario we see the monster that plagues Ben. And at that moment, that monster is represented in Ian. It makes Ben's decision so much more powerful, sympathetic, and ultimately nightmarish because you can see the pain, fear, and paranoia that haunts him.

This episode develops Ben is a new and exciting way that will push his character forward into interesting—and terrifying—new directions.

Earlier in the season, Ben was paralleled with his ancestor, Charles Pownall, whose love for his mermaid quickly turned into fear and hatred as he slaughtered the mermaids in a brutal genocide. Ryn fears this and so does Ben, who sees a horrific illusion of himself killing Ryn as a result of the Siren song manipulating his mind. But Ben is different from Charles Pownall and his choice to let Ian die, in order to save Ryn exemplifies that.

Ryn feared his love would turn into violence and she's right, just not in the way she expected.


End file.
